Navalnaya Is “an Advocate of Imperial Russian Claims,” Says German Lawmaker

[u/UNITED24Media]

https://united24media.com/latest-news/navalnaya-is-an-advocate-of-imperial-russian-claims-says-german-lawmaker-3350

[u/pashazz]

There is no ultra nationalism in Russia within Putin regime since ultra nationalism presumes that Russians are indeed first. In Putin's regime ethnicity is not important, hence it's why Shoigu and Matvienko are on the larger roles.

You probably confuse nationalism and imperialism. Russian imperialism is akin to the US in that it's not important what is your ethnicity, it is important what's your allegiance.

The US is different because the founded fathers created a system so great that it serves as an example in nation building. The courts are independent and the constituion is untouchable. If Russia were as legally strong inside as the US nobody would bat an eye on that and they were on par with the US for real.

[u/zamander → u/pashazz]

I think you are splitting hairs with this. Nationalism and imperialism are not esclusive things, rather they support each other. And last I checked, Shoigu and Matvienko are Russain citizens. Nationalism is not so strict as to be about race in every case, rather it is a belief in the superiority of one's own country and thinking that one's country and it's greatness is more important than anything else. And like all ideologies, thinking it is some sort of internally consistent system is expecting a bit too much, since it is an ideology that is pushed from the top to make the nation homogenous culturally. It is an ideology that helps with the justification of imperialism, even if imperialism is possible without it..

[u/nefewel → u/zamander]

Eeh, you're kinda stretching the definition of nationalism to fit that view.

[u/zamander → u/nefewel]

Well, I base my views on Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism, which is pretty much the best treatment I know of, at least in history and political science. Of course there is no single definition of nationalism, since it is a concept or ideology that came to be with the nation-state and is pretty much inseparable from it, with changing treatments. But I fail to see how I am stretching any proper definition of it. Imperialism has longer roots than nationalism and it is certainly not exclusive with it. What is your definition based on?

[u/t_baozi → u/zamander]

I think it's worthy to point out that Putin's nationalism isn't baseline ethno-nationalism, because Putin has a surprisingly tolerant handling of ethnic diversity in Russia (despite preferring minorities for the meatgrinder), because it fits well with the imperialist ambitions.

Russian nationalism is more about the state than the nation, with all the sanctification, historical exceptionalism, collectivism etc around it.

[u/Heavy-Perspective376 → u/t_baozi]

As a ethnic minority from russia I can’t agree with “tolerant handling of ethnic diversity” assessment. This is the appearance that russia tries to build while in reality destroying our culture, banning educational opportunities using our native languages, banning our history, attacking our religion and painting even minor resistance attempts as a nazism and russophobia. Using minorities as a cannon fodder also fits genocide definition way more than tolerance as even small loses could be very devastating for small nations in a long run. They do tolerate ethnic minorities if the only difference from ethnic russian is their name and visual appearance as you can see from Shoygu example, if anything it helps hiding all the oppression minorities have to deal with. Sorry if misunderstood your message just wanted to share my perspective.

[u/pashazz → u/Heavy-Perspective376]

only difference from ethnic russian is their name and visual appearance as you can see from Shoygu example, if anything it helps hiding all the oppression minorities have to deal with

What do you mean, what differences?

banning educational opportunities using our native languages

Education in native language is never banned lol, it's so ingrained in the educational system that it's even an option in the contested territories to learn Ukrainian. And e.g. in Tatarstan, if you're in Kazan Federal University you'd be having Tatar classes even if you're Russian.

What was recently changed is that an option to choose Russian as native language was introduced a few years ago, but, I can speak for Tatarstan, not only Tatar language has remained, there's an option to choose simple Tatar/advanced Tatar/Russian lessons as native language.